racing was not the right way to introduce the public to this awesome sport.

who can seriously say they got into kiteboarding because they wanted to race?

You gotta be kidding me. We all got into this sport because of jumping or waves or tricks.

X-games? Yes please! Lets just make sure there is a wave competition and a freestyle competition. Heck maybe a speed competition too? Course racing, no thank you, what a yawn fest. The public will not understand or care about people going in circles with kites. That's what nascar is for

swell wrote:Without Olympic status kiteracing turns (or stays) a richkid-sport with no financial support from national goverments..

This is a big one to me. Not only do we lose the argument that kiteboarding is an olympic sport when arguing access to local beaches we also lose out on getting support and actual professional athletes in the sport.

I don't understand people that who don't like racing dislike kiteracing in the Olympics...I actually enjoy watching snowboard racing. I also like seeing halfpipe. I like racing..but I also like riding waves, or a TT. Even if I don't like riding doors, I will not give people that does like riding their doors shit for doing so.

Saying that kiteracing is not the core or soul of kiteboarding is absolute bollocks. If you do not like then don't do it. That is pretty f#$&ing easy.

If someone says it is bording to watch, they probably have not tried much at all. As a spectator sport I can see some issues if you're just sitting on the beach, but in the olympics with all the gadgetry..has the potential to be spectacular. First person experience of kite vs kite...boards bumping..high speed action and great technique. It would be super fun IMO.

Ronnie: Incompetent sure..but there must be something more going on. If they were only incompetent they would not have allowed passing the 68% vote...unless they all failed at basic 2nd grade math.

tautologies wrote:Ronnie: Incompetent sure..but there must be something more going on. If they were only incompetent they would not have allowed passing the 68% vote...unless they all failed at basic 2nd grade math.

I'm sure there are other things going on. There are a lot of influences in the Olympics and the ISAF involving politics and money.

There never was a majority in favour of kiting. Kiting got in by one vote and the Council member who represented Spain was supposed to vote for windsurfing and claimed that he voted for kiting by accident.A woman who represented Canada said she voted for kiting to get more women into sailing. Well she got more women into kiting because some of the many hundreds (maybe thousands) of women racing RSX and the Techno feeder class switched over to join the few kite racers (there were 3 women entered in the PKRA 2012 O'Neill Kiteboard World Cup)http://www.prokitetour.com/news.php?id=303It was a big surprise to everyone (kiters included) when they won the vote in April. So its not like something really changed. Some council members believed the 'estimates' of numbers for kiting in April and by November the full picture was made clear to them.

I have no doubt that by 2016 kite racing will be ready and able to have put on a great show in Rio (if the wind blew consistently). The council basically accepted that they were removing a very big, well established and successful part of their Olympic sailing with one where an RSX girl could take up kiting in June and finish 11th in the World Championship in September.

It makes sense to show the 68% majority if they knew the decision could be made at the AGM.

There is a new or increased respect for kite racers among windsurfers and some RSX sailors who have tried it may continue to race RSX for the next Olympics, but they are going to keep on kiting too.

ronnie wrote: Some council members believed the 'estimates' of numbers for kiting in April and by November the full picture was made clear to them.

autchh!

I should have prefaced that with IMO.

I'm just saying that there were some numbers which are not known and still are not known. Some of the figures suggested for kiting overall seemed high to me, which is fair enough in a sales pitch.

So I think they maybe the Council got an impression from the numbers for kiting overall that kite racing was bigger than it was.

IMO it was just that the sales pitch was very good (without telling any lies) but there was information that the windsurf reps would have needed to know and didn't to balance the picture out to the council so it was windsurfing's fault that they did not put together a proper counter-presentation because they were complacent and not knowledgeable enough about kiting.

I think there is no blame on the kiters for this whole fiasco. The blame lies mainly with the ISAF for ignoring their own technical committee who had studied the subject properly and the windsurf community for complacency, lack of knowledge about kiting and underestimating the kiters.

I'm sure there are other things going on. There are a lot of influences in the Olympics and the ISAF involving politics and money.

There never was a majority in favour of kiting. Kiting got in by one vote and the Council member who represented Spain was supposed to vote for windsurfing and claimed that he voted for kiting by accident.A woman who represented Canada said she voted for kiting to get more women into sailing. Well she got more women into kiting because some of the many hundreds (maybe thousands) of women racing RSX and the Techno feeder class switched over to join the few kite racers (there were 3 women entered in the PKRA 2012 O'Neill Kiteboard World Cup)http://www.prokitetour.com/news.php?id=303

You know what though...saying all these things in retrospect doesn't matter at all. You do not get a second vote because you did not inform yourself about If someone voted then they voted. You can't really undo your vote when electing representatives. Complaining that they didn't know what they were voting for makes this even worse. The only time it would be a valid excuse is if someone have been behaving fraudulently...deliberately lying and covering up stuff. Anything else is nonsense. Sorry to be harsh, but an organization really should know better then such excuses.

Now I don't know the rules and regulations 100%, but it still seems like this process was part of a mickey mouse rinky dink organization that have no rules if someone high up complains a little...this is only perception.

The way I see it is if everything happened by the book, their rule book needs updating, because a system where you can vote in and out sports from the olympics every 6 months is absolutely retarded...if not everything were by the book ie 68% to 75% vote thingy, then someone needs to take their hat and leave...it would also invalidate the final vote as far as I can see.